Trucker-God and the Trickster
by Jonathan Louis Duckworth





 

Deer

They come to the edge

of the still, black river,

and try to ford it.

Too slow; too timid.

Sun opens its eyes early.

 

Opossum

Seven baby possums

have never been prouder

of their mother.

No more playing--

she’s gone professional.

 

Coyote

There are many with the Trickster’s name

in this wide and wild land of ours.

Few are as swift as they think.

Their eyes become laughing emeralds.

 

Trucker-God

You have not seen his face, America.

This one, who hauls

your baby diapers, DVD players, and rutabagas

from shipping ports to shopping carts.

Coffee is his ichor;

yellow-jackets his ambrosia.

He gave one eye

to drink from the well

of a married woman named Prudence.

Each night he defeats the serpent

in a motel bathroom.

His is a lonely kingdom, America. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Jonathan Louis Duckworth is an MFA student at Florida International University, where he serves as a reader and copy-editor for the Gulf Stream Magazine. His fiction and poetry appears in or is forthcoming in Sliver of Stone, Hermeneutic Chaos, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Penny Dreadful, Synaesthesia, and Gravel: A Literary Journal, among others.